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Reassurance, agreeing to avoid opioids, and information gathering were the three most common communication strategies used by physicians and their patients with chronic pain. Those are the findings from a small pilot study conducted to determine how doctors and patients approach the inherent uncertainty of opioid use, given the absence of long-term data about opioids’ efficacy in noncancer or end-of-life pain treatment.

Pain Medicine News continues its three-part Q&A series with Lynn R. Webster, MD, the president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM). Part 2 addresses the second goal of his presidency: improving the health care delivery system so that comprehensive treatment is available to patients with chronic pain.

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CVS Caremark Corp said on Wednesday that it has taken the unusual step of cutting off access to powerful pain-killers for more than 36 doctors and other healthcare providers found to prescribe the drugs at an alarmingly high rate.

A recently reported study evaluated the prevalence, characteristics, associated healthcare resource utilization and costs of diagnosed abusers of prescription opioids in a large managed care population. While such analgesic abuse may be a growing problem, the prevalence rates of abuse and addiction among patients with pain appear to be surprisingly low and not supportive of the so-called “epidemic” claimed by many sources.

Pharmacies have a role to play in the oversight of prescriptions for controlled substances, and opioid analgesics in particular. Under the Controlled Substances Act, pharmacists must evaluate patients to ensure the appropriateness of any controlled-substance prescription.

NIDA and Lightlake Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing novel treatments for addictions and conducting clinical trials with intranasal naloxone for the treatment of binge eating disorder, have entered into a partnership to apply this technology towards the treatment of opioid overdose. Clinical trials are expected to begin fall 2013.

This article discusses the effect of risk mitigation in the treatment of cancer pain, with a focus on pretreatment screening and ongoing monitoring in this patient population that often requires pain management at some time during cancer treatment.